We have a deal

Now that Cruz has made his point, we urge him to focus on what's good for Texas.

Copyright 2013: Houston Chronicle

Updated 3:43 pm, Thursday, October 17, 2013

Now that the Ted Cruz-inspired federal government fiasco seems to have ended, we would hope that his older, wiser Republican colleagues in Congress take the keys away from this freshman upstart, a man whose zealotry and hubris apparently blind him to the damage he has inflicted on the nation's economy and his own party, not to mention his Texas constituents.

What has been gained? Cruz, of course, has burnished his notoriety among tea party voters who may well determine the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, but it's hard to see any benefit whatsoever for anyone else.

Our concern now is that the junior senator from Texas will attempt the same destructive déjà vu in just a few months, when Congress will have to deal with the debt ceiling again. Others are concerned, as well.

"He's going to come back, rewriting history, saying, 'We were on the verge of victory back in October, and we could have won if we'd just stayed in there another week,'" U.S. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, said in an interview on Tuesday.

It wasn't a dysfunctional Congress, King added. "It was one person who was able to steamroll Congress, and unless we target him for what he is, he's going to do it again."

King urged fellow Republicans to call Cruz out and to ignore his self-serving tactics.

We would urge the senator himself to make good on a campaign promise last year, when he unfailingly assured voters that his laser focus would be on what's good for Texas. Neither a quixotic quest to gut the Affordable Care Act nor a thinly concealed presidential bid qualify.

To be blunt, our advice to the senator, now that he's come a cropper, would be to get down to work - for the good of Texas.